Not true for autism. One may find oneself perceiving, attending, and remembering virtually everything... what would typically be described as an “altered state” could be the usual experience of an autistic person.

The constraints, the shaping influences, the “unwritten rules” just aren’t there. That layer is null, or empty. Some like to think that autistic people can have this layer populated/activated and then the person would be cured (or, worse, “rescued”). But if the configuration makes the person, as an earlier quote on “definition of self” suggested, then radically altering the configuration would eliminate the self and substitute a different one. Whose convenience is that for?

I recall reading that one line of defense utilized by an indigenous people involved laying down a line of sacred cornmeal. That was a normative constraint, but conquering foreigners did not know or did not honor what it was, and so were not bound by it. Could be that some of us on the autism spectrum have similar disregard for the constraints mentioned in the textbook quote.

Last revised: June 23, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
(back to project main page)